8th grade Amendment debates

Our 13th argument is:

The death penalty is applied at random.

The death penalty is a lethal lottery: of the 15,000 to 17,000 homicides committed every year in the United States, approximately 120 people are sentenced to death, less than 1%.

The USA is keeping company with notorious human rights abusers.

The vast majority of countries in Western Europe, North America and South America — more than 117 nations worldwide — have abandoned capital punishment in law or in practice. The United States remains in the same company as Iraq, Iran and China as one of the major advocates and users of capital punishment. here is alink to show the death sentence rates around the world http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/mar/29/death-penalty-countries-world

Capital punishment goes against almost every religion.

Although isolated passages of the Bible have been quoted in support of the death penalty, almost all religious groups in the United States regard executions as immoral. Families of murder victims undergo severe trauma and loss which no one should minimize. However, executions do not help these people heal nor do they end their pain; the extended process prior to executions prolongs the agony of the family. Families of murder victims would benefit far more if the funds now being used for the costly process of executions were diverted to counseling and other assistance. OVerall this is a terrible thing to do t people, After all, why do we kill people, who kill people, to show that killing people is wrong?

-- http://www.mapsofworld.com/infographics/poll/should-death-penalty-be-abolished-facts- infographic-text.html

We are the “State.” When the “State” kills, we are participants.

Would you choose to be the person that pulls the switch that snuffs out a human life?

Also,

Capital punishment does not deter crime.

Scientific studies have consistently failed to demonstrate that executions deter people from committing crime. Around our country, states without the death penalty have a lower murder rate than neighboring states with the death penalty.

info from: http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002000

Mentally ill people are executed.

One out of every ten who has been executed in the United States since 1977 is mentally ill, according to Amnesty International and the National Association on Mental Illness. Many mentally ill defendants are unable to participate in their trials in any meaningful way and appear unengaged, cold, and unfeeling before the jury. Some have been forcibly medicated in order to make them competent to be executed. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has decreed that people with “mental retardation” may not be executed, Oregon has not yet passed a law banning the execution of the mentally ill.

Don't you think that this millions of dollars our people spend on executing people would much rather be spent on giving the criminal proper security so that they cannot do as you stated above. In 2000 a fiscal impact summary from the Oregon Department of Administrative Services stated that the Oregon Judicial Department alone would save $2.3 million annually if the death penalty were eliminated. It is estimated that total prosecution and defense costs to the state and counties equal $9 million per year. It costs far more to execute a person than to keep him or her in prison for life. A 2011 study found that California has spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment since it was reinstated in 1978 and that death penalty trials are 20 times more expensive than trials seeking a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. California currently spends $184 million on the death penalty each year and is on track to spend $1 billion in the next five years. -http://www.philforhumanity.com/Capital_Punishment.html-

And people also don’t like this, as said by Helen Prejean

“Government ... can’t be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill.”

– Helen Prejean, author of the book “Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States.”

Such as these examples:

David Spence: David Spence was executed in 1997 for murdering three teenagers in 1982 in Waco. Spence was convicted of raping, torturing and murdering two 17-year-old girls and murdering an 18-year-old boy. As the original allegations go, Spence was hired by convenience store owner Muneer Deeb to kill one girl and he ended up killing these three teens by mistake. Deeb was charged and sentenced to death, but later received a re-trial and was acquitted. Authoritative sources even had serious doubt about Spence’s guilt. Although there was no clear physical evidence to link Spence to the crime, prosecutors used bite marks that were found on one of the girl’s body and matched it to Spence’s teeth. Even jailhousewitnesses were bribed into snitching on Spence. Despite weak evidential support and jail mate testimonies, Spence was executed.

Carlos De Luna: Carlos De Luna was executed in 1989 for the 1983 stabbing of Wanda Lopez, a Texas convenience store clerk. There were two eyewitnesses who played a key role in the conviction of De Luna. Before the murder-robbery, George Aguirre was filling up at the gas station where the crime occurred, when he saw a man standing outside the store slide a knife with the blade exposed into his pocket and enter. The man asked Aguirre for a ride to a nightclub, but he refused and went inside the store to warn Lopez about the suspicious man. Aguirre left and Lopez called the police to describe the man. As she was on the phone with a dispatcher, the man came back into the store and robbed her. The second witness, Kevan Baker, pulled into the station and heard bangs on the station’s window and saw a man struggling with a woman. As Baker approached the gas station, the murderer threatened him and took off. When police searched the area, they found De Luna not far from the station. He was shirtless and shoeless in a puddle of water and screamed, “Don’t shoot! You got me!” Both Aguirre and Baker confirmed De Luna was the man at the station. Little to no physical evidence was collected at the crime scene, including blood samples and fingerprints that could have helped De Luna. De Luna maintained his innocence and repeated that Carlos Hernandez was the actual killer. Despite Hernandez’s trouble with the law and repeated confessions to the murder, De Luna was executed.

Joseph O’Dell: Joseph O’Dell was executed in 1997 for raping and murdering Helen Schartner. O’Dell was convicted on the basis of blood evidence and a jailhouse snitch. O’Dell represented himself and continued to proclaim his innocence in various unsuccessful appeals to the Virginia Supreme Court, Federal District Court and the Supreme Court. O’Dell requested that the state submit other pieces of evidence for DNA testing, but he was refused. Despite much effort and several appeals, the 4th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld his conviction and reinstated his death sentence. After his execution, Lori Urs, an anti-death penalty advocate and former wife to O’Dell, sought to further investigate the case and exonerate O’Dell based on mistaken blood matches, court opinions and refusal of DNA testing. However, the last of the DNA evidence from O’Dell’s case was burned in March 2000 and the appeals were laid to rest.

Leo Jones: Leo Jones was executed in 1998 for murdering a police officer in Florida. Although Jones confessed 12 hours after the murder, he said that he was forced to say he did it during hours of intimidating police interrogation, where they threatened his life and made him play Russian roulette. One witness believed that the police department was out to get Jones because he had assaulted an officer once. The same two arresting officers were released from the department shortly after for using violence in other cases. Despite repeated appeals, other potential suspects and witness testimonies in support of Jones’ exoneration, the sentencing stood as is. Jones was also denied another method of execution and was killed by the electric chair.

Timothy Evans: Timothy Evans was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of his daughter in 1949 at their home in Notting Hill, London. Evans maintained his innocence and repeatedly accused his neighbor, John Christie, of murdering his wife and daughter. The police investigation and physical evidence used to convict Evans was weak. After Evans’ trial and execution, Christie was found to be a serial killer who was responsible for murdering several women at his residence. There were massive campaigns to overturn Evans’ conviction and an official inquiry was conducted 16 years later. It was confirmed that Evans’ daughter had been killed by Christie, and Evans was granted a posthumous pardon. This case of injustice had a strong influence in the UK’s decision to abolish capital punishment.

---http://www.criminaljusticedegreesguide.com/features/10-infamous-cases-of-wrongful-execution.html

our 12th point is that current prison conditions have continually reflected racial and socioeconomic biases which make prisoners of lesser privilege more likely to be sentenced with the death penalty than those of wealthy upbringings and substantial careers. Bryan A. Stevenson, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and professor at the New York University School of Law, visited The Daily Show with John Stewart in October 2014 to discuss the discord between morality and America’s criminal justice system. Stevenson noted that the current criminal justice system operates in a way that is kinder to people who are wealthy and guilty than those who are poor and innocent.

-- http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x284ieq complete-interview-jon-stewart-interviewes-bryan-stevenson-on-the-daily-show-10-16-2014-2-2 fun&sa;=D&sntz;=1&usg;=AFQjCNE3JEo3-oEtQZH6oJkp3vyCeVMZMQ

Race and place determine who lives and who dies.

Those who kill whites are more likely to be sentenced to die than those who kill African-Americans. In Oregon, prosecutors from some counties are more likely to pursue the death penalty than others are. As stated in this quote by The U.S. General Accounting Office,

“[R]ace of victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were found to be more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks. This finding was remarkably consistent across data sets, states, data collection methods, and analytic techniques.”

– The U.S. General Accounting Office, “Death Penalty Sentencing: Research Indicates Pattern of Racial Disparities ...” (Feb. 1990).

Our 9th point is: Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, 138 innocent men and women have been released from death row, including some who came within minutes of execution. In Missouri, Texas and Virginia investigations have been opened to determine if those states executed innocent men. To execute an innocent person is morally reprehensible; this is a risk we cannot take. -- http://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethlopatto/2014/04/29/how-many-innocent-people-are-sentenced-to-death/

As stated even by the supreme court justice...

Perhaps the bleakest fact of all is that the death penalty is imposed not only in a freakish and discriminatory manner, but also in some cases upon defendants who are actually innocent.”

– Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., 1994.

Are you agreeing with our cause by stating that execution costs more? All of these people who have done wrong should be punished. But how do you think killing someone involuntarily , draining the blood out of their body, or suffocating them until there is no air in their brain humane? The death penalty is cruelty, it hurts people physically and mentally. Thinking, tomorrow, i am going to die, but instead the time they spend in prison can be nice, they can think about why their action is wrong and why they are sufferring the consequences, and when they die (naturally) they wont blame the government and be at peace knowing that they suffered the consequences of their actions and lived a full life, considering their families can still visit them in prison, rather, in the case they died,they would never see their familes.

I agree with Janna and here is our 5a) point:

Don't you think that this millions of dollars our people spend on executing people would much rather be spent on giving the criminal proper security so that they cannot do as you stated above. In 2000 a fiscal impact summary from the Oregon Department of Administrative Services stated that the Oregon Judicial Department alone would save $2.3 million annually if the death penalty were eliminated. It is estimated that total prosecution and defense costs to the state and counties equal $9 million per year. It costs far more to execute a person than to keep him or her in prison for life. A 2011 study found that California has spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment since it was reinstated in 1978 and that death penalty trials are 20 times more expensive than trials seeking a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. California currently spends $184 million on the death penalty each year and is on track to spend $1 billion in the next five years. -http://www.philforhumanity.com/Capital_Punishment.html-

And people also don’t like this, as said by Helen Prejean

“Government ... can’t be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill.”

– Helen Prejean, author of the book “Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States.”

this is our 4th argument, and we forgot to write it on there and this is supposed to be 50 word so i'm just saying that this is our 4th point of argument

We believe that yes, if someone commits a crimes usch as killing 30 people this is wrong and there is no one to deny that, there should be a punishment for every mistake, this si human nature. By stating this do you mean that you support that there should be no cruel punishment towards those whom commit such crimes. Yet you are supporting taht thsoe people be killed which is way more inhumane than imprisoning them for life and after all when people die they can never learn from their mistakes. While when in prison they can think about their mistake, which is, quite frankly something education to them, to show them that killing is wrong, by not killing them.